I'm sorry!
by Jedi Master Misty Sman-Esay
Summary: Leia tries to mourn Bail's passing after ANH.
1. Leia

This is a piece about Leia after the events of ANH trying to grieve the lose of the man who raised her.

A/N I went on the upsumtion that like any royal family that Lei a was raised by other people besides Bail and Breha. If it's hard to follow my excuse is that when you're upset your thought aren't straight.

I stare out the into the jungle.

I wish that I could mourn your death but the tears didn't come.

I cried mother died, at least I think I did. I don't remember.

I do remember that I saw you less after her death though.

I hated your sisters with a passion. I wasn't truly sorry when they died in that speeder accident when I was sixteen. They never let me be my own person. They tried to force me to be someone I wasn't and Ani said that that was wrong; that I should be allowed to make my own decisions, to succeed or fail on my own. Padme agreed with Ani.

I never told you about Ani or Padme before either. They are beings that spoke to me when I was lonely as a child. Ani is cold and distant but if you asked him about ships, speeders and how to hot wire certain things and he opens up, a little. He also believes that no one should force their opinions on others. Padme is quiet but like Ani feels that I should make my own decisions.

If you're wondering what happened to them Ani wandered away, Padme said he was depressed and he himself wasn't free and doesn't think he'll ever be free again; he doesn't feel like he deserves freedom again.

Padme stopped talking to me after I joined the Senate.

I joined the Rebellion to help restore freedom to the galaxy, but I became a senator to get your attention. I failed.

In fact you were angry with me. You said that you didn't mind me being in the Rebellion but you did mind me being on Coruscant. You _never_ gave a duracrete answer to why I shouldn't except that it wasn't safe. Of course it wasn't safe! It would have been safer for me to walk down the streets of Tatooine wearing a very revealing costume.

At first I thought that you were worried that Vader would take an interest in me. He barely gave me a second look. And when he did I sensed self-loathing.

When I was aboard the _Devastator_ a old officer asked me if it was true that I had in a round about way called Vader a nerfherder. He told me that he knew someone that had a mouth and that he'd on several occasions had insulted various beings, especially when _he_ was at _their_ mercy. There even was a story that he had called General Grievous short to his face. He went on to that I reminded him of his friend. I asked if his friend still had a smart mouth, he said that he didn't know.

When Tarkin threatened to destroy Alderaan I felt horror. Because innocent people were going to die. I didn't care if they killed me but I didn't think that I could live with myself if the innocents of Alderaan were killed.

I thought that I would break down and weep. But Ani came very briefly and whispered that Tarkin wanted to break me. I felt the truth of his words. Tarkin wanted to break me. So I refused to let him have the pleasure of seeing me cry.

Luke came and told me if I wanted to cry than I should think about the happy times.

Luke Skywalker is Anakin Skywalker's son, the Hero without Fear. I know that Anakin must have felt fear of some type. All sentient beings feel fear.

Luke wants to fight Vader so that he can avenge the deaths of his father and Obi-Wan Kenobi.

I'm sorry that I failed you. I was supposed to bring him to you, instead I got myself captured and he died trying to rescue me. He was the last living member of the Skywalker-Kenobi Team. If anyone could have helped us bring down the Empire than he was one of them.

Maybe this is one why I feel the way I do. I have failed almost everyone!

Through my foolishness I allowed myself to be captured, because I was captured I was tortured for the location of our base, because I wouldn't give it up and Vader didn't want to kill me Tarkin destroyed Alderaan, because Alderaan was destroyed Obi-Wan, Luke, Han and Chewie were captured and brought onto the Death Star, and Obi-Wan was killed because the Tractor Beam had to be disabled.

The only good that came of it was that I met Luke. I feel a connection to him. The same way that I feel connected to Vader. And I think that's bad.

I have tried to think of the happy times but either there were so few of them or I am so filled with guilt for what happened.

I can feel hot tears run down my cheeks.

I'm sorry Bail! I'm so sorry!


	2. Bail

I stand here in the Palace staring at a holo of you when you were five. You were standing on a chair attacking some invisible foe with a 'light stick'. To this day I don't know how you knew what a lightsaber was or who told you, certainly not me or one of your nannies.

I have failed you Leia.

For nineteen years I was supposed to look after you and make sure that you grew up. Well I made sure that you were cared for and you did turn nineteen. But that feels like all I did, even though I know it's not.

When Breha died I became distant. I wouldn't be surprise if because of my distance is the reason that you developed two imaginary friends. Mae and Ani, if memory serves me correctly. The only real friend that you had was Winter and even than that was debatable according to several people.

I got closer to you after that but you seemed so aloof, talking to thin air, tearing apart your room, racing speeder bikes, terrorizing your nannies and later your governesses, speaking languages that weren't in any palace droids' banks and making remarks so scathing that everyone turned to gape at you.

Finally I got concerned and asked a psychologist to come see you. You told him that you didn't like him and neither did Ani. You went on to say that if he didn't leave you alone that you would ask Ani to eject him out of an airlock once Ani was finished with running the errands for the bad man.

I laughed and told you that Ani couldn't eject him out of an airlock because she wasn't real. Looking back on it was nearly a disastrous mistake. You screamed that Ani would be be mad if _he _knew that I called him a girl and that he would eject the doctor out an an airlock because you asked him to.

You then ran out of the room.

I sat and talked to him for a bit. He seemed to think that you were either lonely, suffering from neglect of some type or you just missed your mother. He told me that young children don't like being told that their imaginary friends aren't real. He went on to ask if any servants had been dismissed that you had been close to. I told him that no servants had been dismissed except for a handful of nannies and that they nearly begged to be dismissed. But I did tell him that I would see if any other servants had dismissed that you had been close to.

I then walked to your rooms. I walked in expecting to see you playing on the floor with either Mae or Ani, instead I found the sitting room looking as if the Second battle of Coruscant happened in it. Your bedroom looked like what I can only guess the Jedi Temple looked like after the Jedi were all killed.

You were sitting on what was left of the bed scowling so badly that I paused for a moment. I told you that you had been rude and that you should apologize to the doctor. You just fixed me with a hard glare. I left in a hurry.

I watched the security footage of your room and watched as you wrecked the havoc with the Force, I destroyed it. For all long time I lived in fear that the Emperor would send Vader to investigate the matter. He never came.

After that we had a relationship of sorts, although other people tell me otherwise. At first you threatened to runaway and live with Ani but you never did. Raymus told me that I was a good father to you, I wish that I could believe him.

I was pleased when you joined the rebellion but dismayed when you got yourself elected to the Senate. It would mean that discovery by the Emperor would be hundreds of times more likely.

Besides you were never diplomatic. You told people what you thought about them and held nothing back. You told me that you were doing it for the Rebellion. I wonder if you were doing it for a different reason.

Your first night on Coruscant I had a dream that you were be guarded by a broken creature wearing a tattered cloak with the hood pulled low, nearly over it's eyes. Without warning it locked eyes with me. I couldn't shake the feeling that I had seen those eyes before. They were horrible; they were lifeless and looked as if they belonged to a corpse.

It's face was badly scarred and looked like it was barely alive.

I awoke gasping for breathe.

I search databases for weeks trying to learn its identity but came up empty handed.

I feel so lost. What am I to tell Obi-Wan if and when he shows up?

_I love you._

I find myself remembering the time when you insulted Moff Tarkin. You lectured him for twenty minutes. I apologized for an hour to him about your behavior. You on the other hand wouldn't stop humming a song that Clonetrooppers used to sing.

After he left I had turned to you and to my shame yelled at you for your behavior. You ran away in tears.

Later that night you slipt into my office and looked me in the eyes and whispered 'I love you'.

I remember now.

The picnics in the gardens, the trips to other worlds and the games. You thought that I did a good job so I must have.

I'm just sorry that you are gone so that I can't tell you that I love you too one last time.

"Viceroy," a guard calls. I turn from the window. "An unidentified object has just entered the system. It has not answered any of our hails. It's . . . monstrous."

"I am on my way."

I will see you soon in the After Life.


End file.
